A few weeks ago, a group of self-identified geeks met up at a bar to talk about sex. Sounds like any old Wednesday night, you might say, but this was the beginning of a new movement in town. This was Winnipeg’s first Sex Geekdom Meetup.

It seems some governments are beginning to understand that legalization or the lack thereof has little to do with how people actually behave. Prohibition in 1920s United States is a common example of how outlawing something often fails as a deterrent (the outlawing of alcohol resulted in bootlegging and underground drinking clubs), but often causes people to do that activity more often and under more dangerous circumstances.

At this point, most are somewhat aware of the tenets of polyamory. Monogamy is restrictive, if not a totally bunk relic of Judeo-Christian metaphysics. Why can one become emotionally intimate with new people, but not physically? Why bother drawing such lines? As long as consent and honesty ground everything, anything goes. The logic seems sound.

Schools are often a hotbed of hormonal stress, daunting career worries and the odd (or often, no judgment) bout of socializing. Amidst all of this it is easy to pass over some of the most critical information being taught in the education system.

The lessons have often been cemented by the time we start post-secondary classes: always use a dental dam or condom, get tested frequently for sexually transmitted infections, ensure open conversation with partners. But something’s not working.